Did Itachi Really Say “Forgive Me, Sasuke… This Is the Last Time”?

Yes, but not in those exact words. Itachi Uchiha's last words to Sasuke, spoken as he pokes his brother's forehead, are real. English sources disagree on the wording, and the circulating version, "Forgive me, Sasuke... this is the last time," matches neither of the two we checked in full. Wikiquote's Shippuden transcription has "Forgive me Sasuke, but this is it." A CBR feature has "Sorry Sasuke, this is the last time." The popular line opens like the first and ends like the second, but no source we read prints it, so where that wording comes from is unknown.

The childhood version

The scene works because it repeats an older one. Wikiquote's Naruto page lists, among the series' recurring quotes, Itachi poking Sasuke's forehead with "Sorry Sasuke, maybe next time." CBR's Dina Mouhandes, writing on April 23, 2021, gives the childhood line as "Sorry Sasuke, maybe some other time." The two renderings again agree on the gesture and the apology and differ on the words, which is the same split that runs through the death scene.

The death scene, episode by episode

Wikiquote's Shippuden page records the end of the fight under "The End," numbered 6.26 on its page, as a stage direction with no dialogue: Sasuke is defeated, "but instead of killing him, a smiling Itachi pokes his forehead before dying." The spoken line, labeled as his last words, is recorded under the later episode "Truth," numbered 6.29. Anime News Network's episode list gives episode 138 as "Demise," with "The End" as an alternate title, and episode 141 as "Truth." The transcription does not explain why the words sit under the later episode, so this page does not claim which broadcast first carries them.

Why the wording matters here

CBR's account is that the final poke mimics the way Itachi used to flick Sasuke's forehead when he put him off with "maybe some other time." On either wording, one reading is that the last words close off that old promise of a next time. Wikiquote also records Sasuke, much later in the series, complaining that Itachi always kept saying things like "later" and "next time" and then died on him, and in season 21 Sasuke pokes Sakura's forehead "in a similar way to his brother" and tells her "Maybe next time." The forehead poke and the deferred promise carry the scene more than any single sentence does, which may be why several wordings of it circulate.

What we could not check

Neither Wikiquote nor CBR says which English release its wording comes from, so both are English transcriptions of unstated origin. We did not compare the licensed VIZ manga, a specific dub or subtitle track, or the Japanese. The verdict is that the moment is real and its English wording varies. More checked Itachi lines are on his character page, including the later "I will love you always" speech, and on the Naruto hub. The verdict is logged in the fact-check database, and the verification method explains how competing transcriptions are handled.